Cave teeth

 I'm searching for the nitty gritty

Getting down and dirty with the crew

I'm checking all my facts

Balancing equations til I'm blue

Like rabbits pulled from hats

Or streams down a sinkhole

Money flows or so I'm told

Into this vast cavern

And the devils in the detail

But he wears a thorny crown

I'm digging for dignity

dig for the nitty-gritty

When the chips are down

The cave mouth

And the stalactite teeth have fallen out

And the gaping cave monster

Begins to shout

I think no

It's only a moan

Because it's got toothache

A cavity beneath

A stalagmite

An abscess in the root

Where is the root of this mountain?

Washed with listerine

That like incy wincy spider

Runs down the spout

And comes out unseen

Bed of roses

 Life it ain't no bed of roses

Sometimes can be like a bed of thorns

Indeed when your love rejects your poesies

Then you can wish you'd never been born

But someday those thorns will grow back roses

And from the ashes will be a bed of straw

Then the lions will lie down with the asses

And the lamb and lady will come once more

The thinking hill

 Under the hill 

And over the dale

The water runs on

In buckets and pails

And lamp lights glitter

The streets full of litter

Of the debris of the day of its flooding

Like getting blood from a stone

The mendips alone

Aren't places to roam

But men may atone

For sins they've committed

Or rights they've done wrong

The swords in the stone

Like the words in the song

And I have a home 

In the hills of Rome

Like in Bath the seven paths

All lead to one

Beneath the settled slabs

The calcite, limelight

The shining light shone

Flashing in the darkness

Of Remembering black swan

Gliding on the white lake

Of certainty throngs

Of people gathering above

In the busy world all day-long

But in the quiet echo chambers

The sound reverberates

It's a kind of cranium

a skull

Hollowed out by evolution

Of the water-blood flow

To breathe new thinking space

Into the timeless blue

This hill is a head

That has been contemplating time

And the world for millennia

Each epoch creates a new network

Of channels

Water was its neurons

It had water on the brain

The rain fell on its crown

And it began to think

I am a hill, a rock

But what is a rock

But a composition of chemicals

Elements and minerals

A body waiting to react

To the lifeblood of water

And in the thinking it loses itself

A part is washed away in the flood

Of passing thought through the passages of time

Yet the loss is like a growth

A thinning of the excess weight

Of past ideas, preconceptions

And judgments about the world

That proved false

Or only true for the time they were laid down in

No longer a present reflection of the status quo

Drink to love

 I drink and remember the times

In the Hungarian pub with Dorka 

With a beer and an unicum, and 

An unicum and a beer

And her showing me around

And the excitement I felt about being in Budapest and meeting her

And everything was new and thrilling

And I just don't feel that now

Everything feels numb

And dead to me

I wish it wasn't so

But it is

Maybe I'm depressed

I probably am

Maybe it's that life is as thin

As a slice of

Parma ham

And the night seemed filled with possibilities

Only I screwed it up like I always do

Like a piece of paper

In the trash I threw

Away all the love I felt for you

All the love

Like a velvet glove

So soft to touch

But I've had enough

Of stuff

Like guilt and gelded reasons

And postures meant for older seasons

I've met an elf

Who said the self

Is not what you make

But what you shelf

And store like a cake

a wealth of the twelfth 

night or aching tooth

I've tried to evolve like some

Elven flower,

But I must admit I lack the power

To dynamite the proof

Of life from out the quarry of expectation

Where I live my life

Forever tunneling into

Hard rock excavations

But when I was in that pub, my heart was

Sore because I loved another amore

But could not walk back through that door

And yet the feelings lingered

And so not in might to move on

I kept singing a slow sad song 

Of a deep river along

Which we meandered together

But up on the surface

I was flitting as a wagtail

On a river bank

Hopping like a turn

Dancing the cucaracha with Dorka

While inside singing of Saigon

And Madam Butterfly 

Who I loved, but had to leave her

Like a sailor in a song

Yes and now that river is slow and dirty

Murky waters

Over wasted lands

What's polluted and what I've tasted

Is like sand falling through my hands

There was once a sweet spot in my heart

It's true, and I kept it oh for only you

But not for long, like the morning dew

We must depart

We're through

And I always had to be the barrel

Chaser

Walking on the rolling wagon

And off the double spacer

Taking love like a leaver

Pulled down by the believer

In the pub or in the pew

But here's the rub, 

I was always in love 

With you

Train talk

 Tickets and rail cards

Anymore refreshments

Going to hayford

Lots of them go up and down

Got him a dog

Found him in the garden

I said the garden! Not on a farm!? 

In the gazebo

In the gazebo! 

His names Kenny

We've got a Milo

That figures

Reported Speech

 You said what I meant

And I meant what wasn't fair

You gave me all your love

But I knew you were not there

I loved but an empty drawer

In a room that is now spare

And you who knew I loved you

Could not take me back there

Do Caves smell? epidemics.symphonic.blatently 27th January 2024

 Well actually yes, sometimes due to phenyline phosphate from old

carbide lamps left by previous generations of cavers - this is a garlicy smell

Mixed with the sulphide or sulphate component

That smells of rotting eggs

When you are digging out a cave mouth like we were today at Thrupe lane

Then you may get splashed and then be "diggered" which means covered in mud

Other conversations were about mice or rabbits being trapped and dying and giving off a horrible smell.

The naming of caves came up

We were at hobnail hole

and Thrupe lane swallet was by us

Inside was Atlas cavern

At Wigmore cave there is a place called "don't feed the ambulance"